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By JLNJ Staff | March 05, 2021
2020 was quite a year in California: record heat and fires, COVID-19 and stay-at-home orders. For those in California’s $40-billion wine industry, it was a year like no other. The Jewish Link reached out to a number of California’s kosher winemakers and winery proprietors to learn about the challenges they faced and to find out how they fared.
“It was like we all had these signs on our backs that read, ‘Kick me and kick me again’,” explained Ernie Weir of Hagafen Cellars, California’s oldest kosher winery. “We had a triple whammy, with low rainfall and a very strong desiccating heatwave in the beginning of August that dehydrated grapes abnormally. Then we had the first wildfire and so much smoke that we didn’t see the sun for two or three days. Then we had the second fire, which led to more smoke and the non-harvest or provisional harvest of grapes.” And all of that is before considering the impact of COVID-19 on the